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by Alison Aimes
The entire group was wide-eyed.
“Guards!” Nikolai’s bark jerked Dahlia from her embarrassment. “I will be gone for no more than three minutes. Watch my female as if your life depends on it—because it does.” He turned to her. “I’ll make this fast. You may sit in those seats over there.” He pointed a few feet away, and she realized she’d been so lost in him she hadn’t noticed the chairs, gorgeous art, or fancy rugs decorating the hall. “Rest up, omega. You’ll need it for when I return.”
He winked. Her thighs pressed tight. He groaned, gave her one more squeeze, and started back down the hallway, glaring at his brother Maxheim all the while. “This better be worth it.”
“Wait.” Anya’s hands twisted in her skirt, her nerves obvious as the mob led by Nikolai halted at her request. “Alpha Lord, before you go, may I talk to your omega for a moment?”
Nikolai’s scowl deepened. “I think not. Last time you chatted, it didn’t go well for any of us.”
The dark-haired omega paled, staggering back. “Yes, Alpha Lord.”
Damien snarled, his muscles tightening as if he intended to defend his sister.
Dahlia got there first. “Please, Alpha. I would like to speak to your sister.”
He still didn’t look convinced.
“If I am to be a Skolov, I need get to know those in the family.”
“Hmmm.”
“It would make me happy.”
“Would it?” He looked both intrigued and annoyed at her effort at manipulation.
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. There was much she wanted to say to the other omega.
“Fine,” he agreed at last. “Have your talk.” His amber eyes narrowed. “But this better end with you the same temperature as when I left you.”
She hid a smile. Who knew the man had a sense of humor? “Understood.”
Anya seemed too shocked to say anything at all.
None of the others were moving either, too busy shifting their gazes from her to Nikolai and back again. As if the planets had suddenly shifted on their axes.
When all that had actually happened was the head Alpha of the Skolov crime family had actually compromised and done something nice for someone else.
“Move it.” Nikolai didn’t seem to like the extra attention. He snarled at his brother. “This is taking too long already.”
He stomped forward, the other brothers marching behind. The guards fanned out to give her and Anya some privacy.
Still, even with Nikolai soon out of view, his urgency to return thrummed along the invisible bond between them, the bands at her wrist and throat emitting a soothing warmth that anchored her and made her feel safe. His power continued to surge beneath her skin as well.
The other omega didn’t waste time. “I feel as if I am to blame for what happened.”
“You’re not.” She could feel the other female’s pain and it shamed Dahlia. She’d been so desperate and frightened when she’d made the choice to take her life, only thinking of her family. She hadn’t considered that it might negatively affect others, like Nikolai, or his sister. Now she knew differently. “I always had such a plan in the back of my mind as an option. Our talk did nothing to affect my thinking.”
Relief washed over Anya’s face. “Thank you for saying that. I felt . . .” Her voice broke. “I am glad you’re okay.” She paused. “Nikolai is very angry with me.”
“He will get over it. He cares for you too much to stay angry for long.”
Surprise widened the other omega’s blue eyes, her youth and vulnerability suddenly very apparent. “Do you really think so? I’m such a burden. We all are. If not for us and the need to keep us safe, he’d never be in this situation.”
Now it was Dahlia’s turn to be surprised. “You’re not a burden.” She could speak with true conviction. She’d been inside his mind, thanks to the visions. She knew how deep his feelings ran for his family, including Anya. “Perhaps he doesn’t show it as well as he should, but you are his purpose. The need to protect you is in his blood. It’s what has made him the male he is today. You don’t restrict him, you inspire him.”
Anya looked stunned. “I-I never thought of it in those terms.”
“The visions give me insight.”
“Your gift is amazing.”
“And problematic.” Dahlia’s own fears returned.
“Yes.” Anya’s expression turned contemplative. “But things between you and Nikolai have clearly changed since our last chat. I frankly don’t recognize the almost-happy male who was smiling at you.” Her expression tightened. “I hope you are not thinking to do something so foolish as to try and hurt him.”
Speaking about her complicated relationship with Nikolai was the last thing she wanted to do right now. “No eavesdropping from the ducts to give you insights?”
“I am being punished.”
Unease coated Dahlia’s stomach. She looked the other omega over but saw no bruises. “What does that mean?” She already sensed a fragility beneath the other omega’s show of bravado. She wasn’t nearly as strong as she wanted her brothers and the rest of the world to believe.
“During non-meal hours, I’m confined to my room with guards stationed at all possible exits to make sure I obey. I’ve also had to agree to additional hours with the tutors Nikolai hired away from the omega finishing school.” The omega’s stunning features twisted in a comical parody of disgust. “It’s getting in the way of my job, but I’m making it work.”
Dahlia hid her relief at hearing the extent of what amounted to a light punishment and made a commiserating face of contempt. “I despise the omega educational curriculum.”
Whatever was causing the omega’s pain, it wasn’t her brothers.
“I knew we had more in common than a tendency to drive Nikolai to distraction.” Anya shook her head. “Their lessons can be summed up in one sentence: spread, submit, obey. I got it years ago, I just don’t choose to always follow it.”
“Agreed.”
Dahlia had once thought that under different circumstances, they might have been friends. With her sister lost to her, the idea held more appeal than ever.
It also made her more confused about her way forward. With every heart beat, she was sinking deeper into an either/or situation with no good choice.
“Well, that’s settled.” Nikolai’s low voice sounded from out of nowhere.
Dahlia’s feet left the ground, and she shrieked as strong arms scooped her up without warning.
“Chat time is over.” He hustled past an open-mouthed Anya.
“Alpha!” Unfortunately for Dahlia, the title came out sounding more like a pleased moan than a chiding.
“There will be plenty of time for omega bonding later. Alexi has gone missing again, despite orders to stay put. We’ve sent men to his usual haunts to drag the rebellious bastard home, and I’ll have to deal with that soon. In the meantime, I’ve got a promise to keep.”
He really was a male who liked to keep his promises. She appreciated that.
It was several twists and turns later before he reached the end of a hall and opened a door.
Dahlia’s breath caught in her throat.
26
“What do you think?” Nikolai set her down on her feet at the threshold of the room.
Dahlia stared in awe.
The greenhouse was crystal and glass, teeming with a rainbow of lush colorful flowers that snaked along the walls and lined the pots crowding the tables that stretched the length of the massive room. Twinkling lights and twisting vines dotted the ceiling as well. Plus, unlike the rest of Nikolai’s fortress, the temperature in this room was almost balmy, far more comfortable against her skin than the chillier air everywhere else.
If that magical setting wasn’t enough, the whole dazzling, dizzying feast of color and sultry scents spilled out through two massive glass doors onto a large open patio filled with ice sculptures, more lights, and hundreds of different native flowers native to Abzal. All of it nestled safe and secure wit
hin massive high walls.
She finally found her voice. “It’s . . . the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Second most for me, but I’m glad you like it.”
She hesitated. “Can I go in and explore?”
“You better. It’s yours, after all.”
She spun toward him. “Mine?”
“You said you needed sunlight and air to thrive.” He raised an eyebrow, echoing her earlier less than grateful message when he’d given her the Abzalian lily.
She hid a cringe. “Yes. Sorry. I was . . . upset.”
His expression sobered. “The truth is, I’ve been waiting a long time to share this place with you. The expression on your face makes it worth it.”
Surprise wound through her. Along with so much joy.
No one had ever done anything like this for her before.
“Thank you.” Somehow, he kept slipping beneath her defenses. Somehow, he kept ramming past logic and cynicism. Even the echo of her prime omega’s disapproving voice was not enough to staunch what was blooming inside her.
Nikolai controlled her fate, her body, her gift, and her family’s future. The last thing she wanted to do was give him her heart as well.
But it might be too late.
“This is . . . incredible.” She trailed a finger down the first long table, marveling at each stunning bloom and noticing the inviting stacks of seed packets stored beneath. She could really leave her mark on this place. “You are a good Alpha.” Her voice broke. “I do not deserve this. I have not always been a good omega to you in return.”
He growled low. “I like you as you are.” He gripped her jaw and tilted her chin to meet his stare. “Why are you sad again? I can feel the mix of feelings along the fated bond. As usual, this is not the reaction I expected.”
Her smile wobbled. She could so easily imagine a life for herself here. With him. All her dreams of escape seemed so colorless and bland in comparison.
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t save your family and mine, but I can’t bear the thought of any of you dying either.”
Uncompromising eyes met hers. Nothing about his ultimate objective had changed. “You know what you must do.”
“I will be their destruction.”
“You did not make anyone murder innocents or set fire to an outpost. All your gift will do is reveal the culprit.”
“And as a result, I will become a murderer myself.” She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled once more. “My father is a monster, but he is still my father. And my mother . . . she is an innocent victim, forced to stay by Olan’s side because she is an omega.” Her voice wavered. “You saw her at her worst, but it is because her time with him has twisted her. She never says it, but she despises him. One time I came upon her burning some of his stuff in her private quarters. She laughed it off as a childish outburst, but I know she hates him far more than she lets on. I’m sure if she thought she could leave him, she would. But she thinks there is no escape. That her role is to endure.”
Nikolai’s expression softened. “I understand. This seemed a hells of a lot more black and white to me too before you arrived. You would become a Skolov. You would accept your role as my omega and fated mate and embrace what is between us. Justice would be served, revenge doled out, and the Skolov family secured. But now . . .” He wrapped his hand around her wrist and drew her closer, his thumb skimming back and forth over the sensitive pulse point. “Now that I see how much it’s tearing you apart,” he pounded his chest with his other hand, “and I feel it here, it’s not so easy, after all.”
Her heart beat a little faster. She fell a little harder.
“I will speak with the Brotherhood and, if there is a way to help out your mother, I will do so.”
Her mother’s voice accusing him of lies shrieked in Dahlia’s head, but she tuned it out. “I would be so grateful.”
“I can make no promises. The Brotherhood is not known for mercy and their rules were in place long before I became a member, but I will try. For you.”
“Thank you.”
“You are my prime omega. I can do no less.”
He really was wonderful and such a different kind of Alpha than she’d ever imagined existed.
“But I will say again, you should not need to protect anyone from the truth. All you can be responsible for is whether you choose to reveal it or hide it away.” He was as relentless in this as everything else. “I wish I could take the burden myself, omega, but I can’t. Only you, it seems, can bring down the block. We both know all my efforts to ram through it only give you glimpses into my own actions.”
She had always said she wanted agency and to be allowed to make her own choices, but suddenly she was recognizing how much responsibility came with such a path.
Nikolai was right. Only she could overcome the block. Only she could determine whether she had a vision or not.
She, who had always thought she was so powerless and voiceless, had far more power than she’d ever understood. If she chose to access it.
Despite her fears, despite the costs, she could not regret learning that about herself.
“I may be learning how to control whether or not I have a vision,” she admitted, “but I still have no idea what I will see.” Every time she had a vision, it brought up the ugliness of the past and altered the landscape of the present, and yet it was growing increasingly clear that there was no future for any of them if she did not. “I might not see the rotation of the fire, but something else altogether.”
His hands wrapped around her upper arms. “It will come in time if we are patient. You are strong enough to make it happen. I know it.”
His faith was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
“All my life I have never really felt as if I was anything but a disappointment. I could not give my father the gift he wanted. I could not submit with grace as my mother expected.” She forced herself to admit the rest. “I don’t want to fail you as well.”
“You won’t.”
“I have always wanted someone to believe in me.”
“I know.”
Heat tinged her cheeks. “Is it so easy to see?”
“Not to anyone else, but yes, to me, both the strength of your power and your doubts are as bright and vivid as the colors of the rainbow pulsing through the fated-mate bond.”
“What else can you see?”
“Your fear that this is somehow a manipulation. Your worry that our connection will end the moment I have what I need.”
“Will it?” She held her breath.
“What does the fated-mate bond tell you?”
That she was not as good at reading him as he was her. His strength was there, his power, too. But so much of what originated from his side of the bond was cloaked in shadows, so much of his emotions shrouded in darkness, it was impossible for her to see clearly.
“Stop letting your fears and doubts win.” His voice was a low command once more. “Stop fighting yourself. Submit.”
She sucked down a sharp breath. Could he be right? Could it be that simple and that hard all at once?
“You are not in this alone. I am right here.”
The truth of his support reached her through the fated-mate bond, even through the shadows. She had never felt so close to another soul.
Without warning, the vision slammed into her. This time she did not fight it but surrendered. Just as her Alpha commanded.
“The Kuril crime boss will be arriving sometime this week.” Olan Lundin loomed above.
“Yes, Alpha.” Crumpled on the floor, Naytalia’s gaze was glued to the ground in servile obedience and fear, as Olan liked.
“There will be no repeat of last time.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“You will spread your legs. You will keep him happy enough that he accepts my proposal to do business together.” The Alpha seized her hair and yanked her upward by the roots, so her knees dangled off the ground. “What you won’t do is
let him use your gift for his benefit.”
Her fingers clawed at his hold. “Please, Alpha. I am sorry. It just happened. He said I was pretty. He gave me the ring. The gift came on me. H-He sparked it somehow. I did not plan it.”
Olan threw her to the floor. “I decide what you do with this body and your gift.” He snarled down at her. “I have been trying to get that worthless gift of yours to work—and nothing. Then he comes along, spouts bullshit in your backwater ear about how you’re special, and you give it to him! Him! Why not me?”
“It was a mistake.” But there was a flicker in the omega’s eyes, a cunning light that hadn’t been there before. “You know you are the only one who makes me come alive.”
“Liar. You said you cared for me!” Olan slammed his fist into the wall. “You begged me to come here. You spread those thighs and writhed against me and whispered how much promise this shithole had. You pleaded with me to kill the Alpha in charge and take over. To take you as my property. You said you would do anything for me. You said your gift was mine for the taking.”
“I can’t help it if your prime omega’s interference is undercutting my efforts. She is always interrupting right when I feel as if my gift might finally show itself.”
“Leave Tasha out of this. Do not speak her name. She at least knows how to see to my needs, and when to shut up.”
“But that’s not what you like in your omega, is it?” Naytalia slunk toward him, winding her body around his leg. “Her docility isn’t what you want or need. That’s not what you keep coming back to this outpost for. That’s not why you spend your time fucking my disobedient, dirty little cunt and not hers.”
Olan growled low and, for a heartbeat, it appeared as if he was entering the rut, but then he stiffened and kicked out, sending her tumbling back into the wall. “I can’t be so easily manipulated this time, omega. You give him anything that is mine again and you’ll both regret it, along with those brats you keep around to do your bidding. Don’t cross me.”
He stormed out.
Naytalia pushed herself to her feet, but instead of tears, or terror, a slow smirk spread across her face.